MARTINEZ — A man once charged with running Richmond’s biggest cocaine trafficking ring of the 1980s testified this week that a former Richmond detective recruited him to distribute cocaine in the Bay Area during the early 2000s.

The detective, former Richmond police Sgt. Michael Wang, has already been implicated by a number of others as having taken bribes from a Sinaloa Cartel cocaine dealer, and having revealed to him the identity of a police informant, resulting in the informant being shot. But these new allegations — that Wang actively recruited cocaine dealers to sell for him — raise the bar.

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Anthony “Peanut” Hollingsworth, testifying as a defense witness in the trial of Family Affiliated Irish Mafia founder Coby Phillips, said under oath Wednesday that Wang “had me selling for him,” during the early 2000s and gave him a pass to sell cocaine in Richmond.

“Michael Wang told me only to sell drugs in Richmond, and I wouldn’t have to worry about getting arrested,” Hollingsworth said.

He was dubbed the leader of “the Peanut gang” after his 1985 indictment, but he denied being in a gang “by any stretch of the imagination.” He freely admitted on the stand to having been a cocaine trafficker, saying he created a “network” to distribute drugs in West Contra Costa. He said he never sold crack, only “powder.”

“(Cocaine) sells itself,” Hollingsworth said under oath.

In the early 2000s, Hollingsworth was back out on the street, having been sentenced to 13 years in prison in 1986. He said he was arrested one night in 2004 — coincidentally, the same day his son was having high-risk surgery — and begged the jailer for “a break.” The next morning, he was introduced to Wang, who was assigned to investigate drug trafficking at the time.

Hollingsworth described a former Sinaloa Cartel cocaine dealer named Sergio Vega-Robles as Wang’s partner in the drug business. Vega-Robles became a key police witness after he, Phillips, Hollingsworth and others were charged as co-conspirators in a drug trafficking case in 2005.

Vega-Robles provided information to police that implicated his brother, Jose Vega-Robles, and Phillips in the 2004 killing of an Aryan Brotherhood drug dealer. Prosecutor Tom Kensok said in an interview Thursday that Phillips’ attorney introduced Hollingsworth as a witness in an attempt to discredit Sergio Vega-Robles.

“Wang is very much a sideline to the current prosecution of Coby Phillips, which is where all my focus currently is,” Kensok said.

Wang was fired after the revelations about his relationship with Vega-Robles came to light, but to date, he has not been charged with a crime. Kensok, a high-ranking member of the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office, did not comment directly on Hollingsworth’s allegations, but he acknowledged, “information continues to come out.”

“I would say the matter remains under investigation,” Kensok said, when asked why Wang hasn’t been charged with a crime. “The question has come down to what can we prove within the statute of limitations, and I don’t want to comment further than that.”

Kensok added that Richmond police “followed through” with their internal affairs investigation into Wang, but he wouldn’t say whether the department recommended he be charged. Requests for comment from Richmond police were not returned.

Phillips’ attorney, Daniel Horowitz, said Wang has been let off the hook for his conduct, but acknowledged there may be “statute of limitations issues” with prosecuting him. He said in Phillips’ first murder and conspiracy trial — which resulted in a hung jury — certain Richmond police evidence files that referred to Wang’s relationship with another informant “disappeared.”

“(Wang) has just been given a free ride,” Horowitz said. “And as we heard with Hollingsworth, he actively recruited people in desperate situations to go work for him.”

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